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special edition of "andrea mitchell reports." we are here in cape cod, massachusetts, as thousands remember eunice kennedy shriver, jfk's sister and a hero to millions who will never know her. a public wake will be starting soon at this small parish church, the same church where caroline kennedy was married and the foam mourned the 1998 death of bobby and ethel kennedy's son, michael, after a skiing accident in colorado. the kennedy and shriver families arrived here at our lady of victory church just about a half an hour ago for a private service, a service accepting the body before the public will be allowed in. and just like her more famous brothers, eunice has now earned a rightful spot in american history books. she brought hope and she brought promise to millions after founding the special olympics. the compassion that she had for her mentally disabled sister, rosemary, greatly influenced her advocacy for others with special needs. now only two members of that original kennedy dynasty remain,

but the next generation is already carrying on their legacy. and the kennedy family, well known here in cape cod, the family's hyannis port compound has served as their sanctuary for decades. and what does this area mean to the kennedys? >> i think for the kennedys, it was a place they could come and relax. it started as a vacation home for them, joe kennedy bought the first home on the compound in hyannis port, and over the years, it has been a place they come to gather for weddings, for celebrations, for birthdays, and also in times of tragedy. but it's a place where the kennedys are known, but it's not like they're celebrities. this is a really laid back place. it's not very fancy. they live on a public street and they're part of the community. they come here for mass on weekends and both mrs. shriver

and ambassador shriver would go to daily mass. the church is a very important part of their life. and i think you'll see that celebrated here today. and as you can see behind us, there are lots of people here from the cape who are coming to pay their respects, because the kennedys are part of this community. they are part of the fabric of this land. >> as we hear the church bells, and this is the church where eunice shriver, eunice kennedy shriver, came very often, she stood out in the family, even in that hyper generation of very competitive siblings, she was very special. >> she was very special. she was, her father, joe kennedy said, if she had been a man, she would have been the one to be president. >> and i think what he said, ann, was is if she had had a pair of -- you know what -- >> can you say that on church property? >> i can't even say that on nbc or msnbc property. >> well, he probably did put it that way, but there was no question she was extraordinarily

bright. she went to stanford university, graduated in the early '40s. she was a very good athlete, by her own admission. but more than that, she was somebody who was driven, and driven to do well and to make the world truly a better place. on "nightly news," we have a segment called "making a difference." eunice kennedy shriver genuinely made a difference in this world. not by elected office, not by her fame, but because of the compassion she felt for the mentally retarded. >> and when she died, she was 88 years old this week, but as recently as 2007, two years ago at the special olympics game in shanghai, there were 80,000 people there and chinese president hu jintao, this in a country, china, that has notoriously hidden the disabled, the mentally and physically disabled. but she brought it out of the closet. even when i was young, in the '50s and '60s, and we had neighbors who were then known as "retarded," and we all in the

neighborhood gathered and raised money and created schools. but then it was still pretty much hidden. >> it was. there was a time when we were far more reserved about things in our lives. and mental retardation was treated almost as a tragedy, something to be ashamed of. people didn't speak of it. and she wrote this column or this article for "life" magazine back in 1962 with president kennedy's approval and talked about her sister, rosemary, who was retarded and who was low bottlemized because they thought that would actually help her, and it turns out -- >> a great shame -- >> but something good came of that. and that is, it started camp shriver, the camp that mrs. shriver would hold at their family estate in maryland, and then that blossomed into the special olympics. and i don't know if you've ever gone to a special olympics event -- >> i have. >> i have too. and it's extraordinary. to see these kids achieve and

know that they can achieve and feel absolutely -- feel like winners. it's something that i think normal people take for granted. and you see their faces and what a difference it makes in their lives. it really -- she gave the world a very, very special gift. >> and in addition, of course, we all think, today, about ted kennedy, senator edward kennedy who is not here at the wake. and we know that is he is battling brain cancer and how difficult this struggle has been for him. he only, yesterday, was given the medal of freedom. he wasn't there. his daughter, kara, accepted it from president obama, but the white house ceremony really memorialized his extraordinary contributions. and we don't know whether he will attend the funeral tomorrow, but the funeral will be broadcast and will be available for live broadcast as well. >> it will. and i think -- and they are going to stream it on

eunicekennedyshriver.org, the special olympics site. senator kennedy did attend the private mass they had on tuesday evening at the private home in hyannis port, and we could see him as he drove in and he sort of waved to the cameras. but i think as people gather, they have not only mrs. shriver on their minds, but obviously the health of the senator, who is very much a beloved figure here in massachusetts. i mean, he has been a senator to this state since 1962. it's hard to imagine that there wouldn't be a kennedy representing massachusetts, after all these years. >> and when we think about this next generation of kennedys, we think about the fact that patrick kennedy, the senator's son, has had his own challenges. he's been in and out of rehabilitation. he's acknowledged that he's had his difficulties with alcohol and with prescription drugs. and yet there are so many contributions from all of them in different ways. we're going to be talking shortly with bobby kennedy jr., an environmentalist. there is, of course, carrie kennedy, a human rights

activist. and the extraordinary achievements, of course, of the shrivers. maria shriver, who has become an activist as first lady of california, but an activist for alzheimer's research, because of her father. >> right. and then also, maria is a very big activist for women. and she is holding a conference about women's issues later this year out in california. you look at timothy shriver and anthony shriver, anthony shriver started best buddies, which also deals with people who have challenges. bobby shriver works with bon fabonno. i mean, the shriver family have devoted themselves to public service, to following in the footsteps of both their mother and their father. because you remember that sergeant shriver was the one jfk tapped to lead the peace corps. so there is this whole legacy of public service that this family -- this family walks the talk. they live it every day of their lives.

>> ann thompson, stay around. i know we'll be talking to you a bit later. thank you so much. ann thompson, a woman of the cape as well as being here on the cape. and joining me now on the phone, nbc special news correspondent, tom brokaw, joining me from out west. tom, thanks so much. you've spent so much time with the kennedys and the shrivers over the years. eunice kennedy, a very special woman. talk about what she meant, especially coming from a generation where it was not that easy for women to excel. >> no, and i don't think it ever occurred to her that it was not that easy for women to excel. eunice was a life force in that family of such enormous energy and dynamism, i said to somebody the other day, you didn't have a conversation with eunice, you had a cross-examination. she would come barrelling into the room and have a number of questions about what was in the news or in politics that day, and she almost always had some special project that she just

couldn't understand why it wasn't getting more attention on the news. tlar couple of family laughs always. one was, you know, any number of the kennedys said, she's the one who should have been running for president. and she would mock that constantly, if you raised it around her. and then, of course, in that distinctive eunice way, she would say, every mother should have a daughter like maria. and they were exceptionally close. it's a great loss for the family, obviously. but it's also a great reminder for all the wealth and controversy and the tragedy in that family, that eunice never, ever shied from what she felt was her fundamental obligation as a citizen and as a faithful communicate of the catholic church, as a wife and as a mother. she played all of those roles to the very end. and so i think however you feel about the kennedys, you can look

at eunice and say, there's a model for everyone. >> and in fact, tom, you know when he you talked about her as a communicate, she was very, very vigorously antiabortion. that was her faith. and that didn't fit into the role model that many people associate with the kennedys being liberal on social issues. but she was unique. and she was always eunice. she was true to herself. >> she was. and she was also constantly so proud of sarnlg, who's going through his own struggles now, and maria has reportedly on that so eloquently with his struggle with alzheimer's. and as maria said to me one day, the next book you should write, tom, is about our generation having to deal with taking care of the greatest generation. and there's something to that. the children who are now looking

at their parents who have been through so much feel a special obligation to them. and eunice, you know, it was tricky for sarge, because his last name was shriver and not kennedy. so there was always the distinctive shriver piece of the kennedy clan and sarge more than carried his banner very high. a vice presidential candidate, a man who ran the original peace corps and the director of the war on poverty later. he brought his own strong sense of public and christian commitment to whatever he did as well. >> well, tom brokaw, who knows the kennedy family well, thank you for sharing your thoughts about eunice kennedy shriver and how the legacy lives on with maria and her generation. >> andrea, if i can, i'll just tell you one more story, very quickly. >> please. >> i was, actually, you may remember, and this was all quite by accident, i was the one that

introduced maria to arnold at a cocktail party in new york. they took to each other instantly, and about two weeks later, eunice tracked me down, and said, tom brokaw, was this your idea! and she was plainly not happy. and i took great joy in reminding her of that when arnold proved to be an enormous political figure in his own right and i would often tease her when i see her at maria and arnold's home in california when sarge and eunice would be there, i would say, well, are we over here taking advantage, eunice, of the republican's hospitality. and she would get a great laugh out of that and begin to question me about something else. >> well, it all worked out well. so you can take full credit. >> all right. >> thank you, tom! >> okay, andrea. bye-bye. >> and here with me now, eunice's nephew, robert f. kennedy jr.

first of all, our condolences. i know this is a difficult day and we thank you for coming out. you've just had the private ceremony. how is the family doing and maria and the brothers and all of you? >> you know, it's been in many ways, a wonderful experience for us. we have, i don't know, probably 50 members of the kennedy family here and we've got to spend the last week together at eunice's bedside and then had a series of private wakes and services for her at her home. it's, you know, it's the kind of thing that eunice would have wanted. and reminding each other what she meant to all of us, eunice was my godmother. and she had -- you know, she had many sides to her, she was very competitive. she was deeply pious in her catholicism, but at the same time, she was -- she had a total absence of any kind of vanity. she didn't care what she was wearing when she left the house. she carried chaos with her

everywhere she went, but she was a genius at organizing people and she was really -- this organization is one of the -- if you look at it as a grassroots organization, as a bottom-up organization, it's done more for people than probably any single thing that my family did. there's now 3.1 million special olympic athletes, 176 countries. when i was 14, we started doing special olympics at her house in bethesda, maryland, in 1962 and all the members of my family were involved and we were sent over every weekend during the springtime and the autumn to help people, to help intellectually disabled people and swim races and running races and all the kinds of competitions that she dreamed of, to serve as huggers in those competitions, to the people who finished, to the people who competed. and then it grew and grew. and it grew into this enormous

organization. but she inspired me when i was 14 to spend 100 hours working in the home for the retarded, which was in upstate new york. and it was a place that was characteristic of how people treated mentally disabled, intellectually disabled people at that time. it was a lot of shame attached to families who had intellectually disabled children. the situation was absolutely medieval. people were living in soiled conditions with very little supervision, with almost no treatment. and she said -- she had experienced something very different with her sister rosemary, where my grandparents had said, we're not going to send her away to some place, we're going to raise one her as one of our children. she is a -- she's just as much loved by god as any of the other children in this family. she has just as much value as a human being, as any other child

in this family. her intellect is absolutely meaningless in terms of the way that god sees her and we're going to keep her in this family. and during that experience, rosemary flourished, and they were never embarrassed, they were never ashamed. they took her in ski races, they took her in sailing races, they took her to meet the queen. and eunice, at one point, you know, in 1962, my uncle was in the white house and she looked at this population who was more -- there was more bigotry towards them, more prejudice, more disenfranchisement, more alienation and more vulnerability than any other population in america. and she decided to be their champion. and she really -- >> and what a champion she was. i remember, i was just saying to ann thompson, i remember when i was a child and we had a neighbor who was "retarded" and i was his baby sister often and my parents started an

organization with others in the community, but there was so much shame attached to the condition of these children. and it's all changed, because of your aunt. or your godmother. >> and i think it's because she never felt that way about her sister, and i think a lot of that was her catholic faith, that she believed that, you know, every human being has a soul and every soul is beloved by god. and that they're -- you know, everybody has certain capacities. and at that first special olympics, and i was there in south bend, indiana, in 1987, the first international games, there was a child who was winning the race, a sprint, and the child fell, and the second -- the person who was running second went towards the finish line and just before he crossed the finish line, he stopped, turned around, and went back and picked up this other -- the boy who was going to beat him, and then they both crossed

the finish line together, and they were last and second to last. and i think that was the spirit of the special olympics. and abc showed that again and again. and i think it showed that something about sportsmanship, that you didn't see in the real olympics. and something about, you know, that wisdom is not a province of the intellectually gifted. you can have read every book in the library of congress and still not have wisdom. wisdom is the knowledge of god's will. and it was accessible to these people who were intellectually disabled on the same basis that it's accessible to the rest of us. and this child knew right from wrong and knew what compassion was and knew what love was and eunice was able to see that and say that these children, you know, are not disabled in any real sense. it's the rest of us who are disabled, for looking at them and looking at this as a disability.

>> now, in this time of celebrating eunice's life and mourning her and feeling her spirit and the spirit that she brought to life and to the family, how is your uncle? how is senator ted kennedy doing? >> he's having his own struggles right now, but he's doing well. he was sailing, i saw him out on the boat yesterday, he's going sailing every day. he's keeping up with his work. he's staying on top of national health care. and i think, really, one of the things that really keeps him going day after day is his determination that, you know, before he goes on to the next life that this country is going to have national health care for every american. >> well, bobby kennedy jr., the g godson of eunice kennedy shriver, we thank you for your remembrances and your really compelling thoughts about what she represented. >> thanks, andrea.

>> thanks for joining pus. >> thank you. and our coverage continues live from cape cod. but, first, the white house sets out to dispute myths on health care. what it calls myths. nbc's savannah guthrie joins us live with today's big story. savannah? what's our favorite part of honey bunches of oats? the sparkly flakes. the honey-baked bunches! the magic's in the mix. my favorite part? eating it. honey bunches of oats. taste the joy we put in every spoonful. my daughter was with me. i took a bayer aspirin out of my purse and chewed it. my doctor said the bayer aspirin saved my life. please talk to your doctor about aspirin and your heart. i'm going to be grandma for a long time. are you all right? a ferocious white whale wrecked my boat. well, i'm sure we can help you, captain... ahab.

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and now to washington where the white house is going viral to try to counter what it sees as misinformation in the health care debate. it's the big story for us at the white house today, so let's bring in nbc news white house correspondent savannah guthrie. savannah, what are they trying to do? we understand that david axelrod has sent out an e-mail. what are they trying to accomplish here? >> reporter: chain e-mails that

ask you to forward it to people that you know. well, the white house is engaging in that practice. david axelrod writing a letter to supporters, saying, this is probably the longest e-mail i've written in a long time. and essentially, what the note has is corrections of the misinformation that's out there on health care and what david axelrod asks those who get the e-mail to do is to try to forward it to people they know, to get that information out virally. and some of the misinformation from their perspective has also gone out virally, so they're trying to fight fire with fire. >> one of the things they're trying to fight is the whole issue of the death panels. we first heard it from senator palin. senator grassley from iowa got into on it, and this is what he had to say yesterday. >> in the house bill, there's counseling for end of life. >> that's it! >> and from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. we should not have a government program that determines you're

going to pull the plug on grandma. >> is senator grassley buying into the whole "pull the plug on grandma" stuff? >> reporter: if you really looked exactly at what he says, it's not like he uses the word "euthanasia" or "death panel," but statement, he doesn't pour cold water on this. and he has some issues with the provision in the plan that would provide end of life counseling. so it's not a helpful statement to the wous, who is trying to correct this impression that somehow in any of the bills out there on capitol hill that there's a provision that would end up with euthanasia, essentially. grassley, still someone who's working on health care reform. he's still enormously influential. but, no, i don't think they're thrilled at the white house about these latest statements. >> all right.

savannah guthrie, thank you very much. as the truck backs up there and beeps. thank you, savannah. >> reporter: i can give you a construction report while i'm at it. >> well, it's pouring down rain here. it's the elements. as the kennedy family comes together to mourn the family of eunice kennedy shriver, we'll take a look at the next generation. kennedy family friend bob shrum joining us. this is "andrea mitchell reports," only on msnbc. sometimes the best way to get closer... is to get as far away from it all as possible. don't let erectile dysfunction get in the way. ♪ viva viagra! viagra, america's most prescribed ed treatment, can help you enjoy... a more satisfying sexual experience. ready to talk to your doctor? find out how at viagra.com ask youroctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex.

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garden convention. and you live not far from here. you're a neighbor. >> that's correct. >> the importance of this community, it's striking as you drive around, so many houses with flags at half staff. the kennedys are part of this neighborhood. hyannis, of course, the compound, has been such an important part of american history? and it's really happened over the years. you know, in 1960, the cape was still a kind of republican area in massachusetts. and there were people on the cape when president kennedy was elected that were worried it might be disrupted. i think they came to love the fact that it was there. and for the family, it's always been a place to go to sail, to have fun, to play games, eunice, by the way, was very competitive and very good at games. and before vcrs and dvds in the downstairs of the big house, watch a movie on saturday night. >> and when you think about sailing and think about senator ted kennedy, who bobby jr. said sailed yesterday, this is part

of his own therapy, his own dealing with battling this disease. he's been able to get out on the water, and that matters a lot to him. >> yes. this has been home to him. i say there are a lot of politicians that get to washington and they'd really rather be in washington than back home. i've never thought for a moment that ted kennedy wouldn't prefer to be here as a place to live rather than in washington. the sailing, it was something they shared. he shared it with eunice, all of them shared it. i remember when she was eternally optimistic about my capacity to be athletic, which was nonexistent. >> i was going to say, bob -- >> so she decided i would crew for her in a sailing race and we borrowed teddy's little boat. and of course, we're doing very badly in the race, and i don't know what i'm doing. and she finally starts saying, throw the ballast out of the bag. i said, what's the ballast? she said, it's the bricks down at the bottom. so i'm tossing these bricks one after another after the boat. and we have dinner that night, and teddy says, what happened to

the ballast in the boat? and i forget what it was, but the bricks are like $25, $30 a piece. eunice is completely unfazed, she said, we had to win that race. >> she was very competitive like that. you suggested she was a good politician in her own right. >> she was terrific. the tea parties that were organized for her brother, jfk, in 1946, when he ran for congress, and in '52, all across the state of massachusetts, when he ran for the senate, they were all involved, but she was really the driving force of that. and she also had a kind of incredible cool under pressure. you mentioned earlier in the program that she was anti-abortion and she certainly was, although it was never in doubt that she was for the democrat for the president. but when she was campaigning for ted kennedy in 1980, we went into some event in iowa and some anti-abortion activists, not, i think, understanding who she was, hit her over the head with

a plaqcard, the secret service was not happy, but she insisted on going back out, she wanted to talk to those folks. >> now, when we talk about this next generation, maria shriver. >> it's a very powerful force in the second generation of the women's movement, where women still lag behind in all sorts of way in the society, alzheimer's, which comes out of what's happened with her father. you know, and in a way, it follows her mother. we saw them last summer at the pops by the sea, which is an event held in hyannis every july, beginning of august, and maria was there with her mother, taking care of her mother. and you would walk up and her mother would immediately recognize you, get into a big, long conversation about what was going on in the world, what was going on in the campaign. and i think eunice set a model, that out of the personal tragedy of rosemary, she created a

movement that has changed the lives of millions of people all over the world. almost no one does that. >> and, in fact, she was always also a mom. anytime i ever ran into eunice shriver in washington, it was always, did you hear about what maria has just done, or the boys? >> she thought all children were special, but thought hers were the most special of all. which is what you want your mother to think. >> by the way, arnold schwarzenegger, the governor, has just tweeted on twitter, he said, being here right now, i can just hear eunice saying, don't make this so much about me, make this a call to service. >> well, and i think there will be elements of the service tomorrow that will be that. i think special olympians will be there very much in evidence. i think, from what i hear, the special olympics torch may go into the church first. and i think that that's exactly what she would say. it's how she always felt. and she had this incredible dry wit. if you watched her go back and forth, say, teddy, they were

very close and they knew how to tease each other. she also had this habit, when she had dinners at her house in washington, she would have a cardinal, a cabinet member, some friends, maybe a senator, and at 10:00, she would get up and she would say, thank you all very much for coming, i hope you had a nice time, because she was going upstairs to go to bed, to go to work the next morning. >> it was always about the work and the service. thank you so much, bob shrum, for great memories of eunice kennedy shriver. and still to come on "andrea mitchell reports" today, the families of victims of the 1988 lockerbie bombings express their outrage at reports that the only bomber, the only person convicted for that attack, may be set free. plus, eunice kennedy shriver's enduring legacy. her contributions outside the world of politics. we're back live from massachusetts after this. >> let me win, but if i cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.

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more than two decades after the deadly bombing of a pan am plane over scotland, the man deemed responsible could go free. a 57-year-old libyan national, abdel al megrahi is the only person convicted in the lockerbie bombing. he has terminal prostate cancer and he could be released to spend his final days with his family. that prospect is sparking outrage, particularly among the victims' families. >> don't kid yourself! this whole thing is not just about megrahi, it is about appeasing omar gadhafi and it is the oil interests with the governments in tow, which are really behind this. >> so let's bring in jim

holgrem, it seems incredible that susan combs' daughter would be in her 40s. these were college studies from syracuse, university. that terror act so complicateded in our history. how does this fit into american policy now that we are normalizing relations with libya? >> it's an embarrassing hangover from a truly terrible crime that has in large part gone unpunished. the families, i think, have a right to feel some outrage, but i think a lot of that outrage comes not so much from the fact that megrahi might be free, but the fact that gadhafi was never punished for this act. and the trial shows conclusively that this would not have happened without gadhafi's either approval or acquiescence. this has been a problem in american foreign policy for quite a long time.

the clinton administration did a good job of resisting british pressure to normalize relations with gadhafi. then the bush administration made basically a plea bargain agreement with gadhafi. he would give up terrorism and they would relax pressure on the issues surrounding the lockerbie case. now it's up to the obama administration to take a position and perhaps to finish this act. right now, we're still in the plea bargain phase where gadhafi gets a pass because he has decided to stop terrorism. >> and also stop any kind of nuclear experiments, his nuclear program, which the bush administration was able to trade down. you know, the other thing about what gadhafi has done, though, according to the families, is that he's got oil and he's got a lot to trade. and that is their suggestion, that this is really a very mercantile decision. >> well, i don't think that the

u.s. administrations, beginning with the clinton administration, have really been bought off by the oil interests. i don't think that's fair. i think, internationally, qaddafi has been given a lot of slack because of the importance of oil, but i don't think the american government, for the past 20 years is guilty of that particular sin. >> let me ask you about hillary clinton's trip. because only yesterday in nigeria, she was talking about the importance of democratic institutions and how difficult it is for democracies to evolve and she brought up, some would say, awkwardly, the 2000 election, bush versus gore. this is what she had to say in nigeria. >> our democracy is still evolving. you know, we had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. in 2000, our presidential election came down to one state, where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we

have our problems too. >> so she seems to be suggesting that the election was stolen from al gore. many people believe that, but is that the right thing for a diplomat, for the secretary of state, to be suggesting? >> well, i feel a lot of sympathy for secretary clinton on this particular trip. i used to live in africa and had to make trips like this one, and it's just exhausting. and by the end of a trip like this, you're liable to say anything. i think the point she was trying to make -- >> and she has. >> exactly. i think she was trying to use american experience, which many of us feel is not blameless in this area, to soften her own criticisms of the nigerian experience and what's happened in elections and what's happened with corruption there. she was quite outspoken on those points. perhaps she went a little too far. but, again, i have a lot of sympathy for somebody who has to endure what she is enduring now and has endured in the past. >> and, in fact, what she's accomplished in congo, in

particular, in goma, in trying to shed some light on the incredible suffering of the women, and the men now, who have suffered the raping, the gang rapes and other weapons of war that have been used to make 500,000 people homeless, the millions killed, and hundreds of thousands of women and girls who have been terrorized in their homes. jim, it really is an extraordinary, horrific legacy that she is trying to shine light on. >> i think that's right. and i think on balance, what she's done on this trip has been a combination of being very brave and to some extent, being a little fool hardy as well, to take on such a daunting assignment. but so far, i think, on balance, she deserves credit for it. >> jim hoagland from "the washington post," thank you very much. and when we come back, we'll talk more about senator ted kennedy, who, of course, is remembering his sister for her wit and her humor. but then there is his own battle

against brain cancer keeping him away from today's wake. coming up, we'll talk about the impact of his illness and the future of cam loath. >> here you have teddy kennedy, the youngest member. he was called the caboose of the family, and the one that was responsible, and now at the var time that one would imagine would want to be there organizing and making everything happen. but did you know you also get hotel price assurance? it's a one-two punch of savings -- pow! pow! lower hotel booking fees mean you get a lower total price. plus, if another orbitz customer then books the same hotel for less, we send you a check for the difference, automatically.

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murkowski, who said, just in case you didn't -- i didn't see it, it wasn't on your newscast -- but it does us no good to incite fear in people by saying there are these end of life provisions, these death panels. quite honestly, i'm so offended at that terminology, because it absolutely isn't in the bill. there's no reason to gin up fear in the american public by saying things that are not included in the bill. that, i think, would be my -- i would paraphrase that response. >> -- senator grassley? >> yeah, i think that's what senator murkowski said -- >> in your mind, this doesn't jeopardize the bipartisanship right now? >> no, i think we're continuing to -- obviously, the president is continuing to talk to lawmakers and hope that this finance committee can come to some agreement. >> besides the town hall, tomorrow, what else is he doing in montana? recreationally that you can --? >> i hope we'll be enjoying big sky country, but i don't have anything to announce.

>> doing what? hiking? fishing? >> i don't have any announcement on that today. >> any coverage? >> probably not. >> whatever it is -- >> at least i can lead on that side of it. >> whatever it is, we will see it, is that what you are saying? >> robert, i want to follow up on what chuck was asking about senator grassley. so he's the top senator on the senate finance committee. the president has talked to him, the president wants a bipartisan bill, and yet senator grassley came out and said, no public plan option, no way, no how, he won't vote for a bill on it. and yesterday in a chance to clarify this death penalty thing, instead he jumped on it and people -- death panel, sorry. he said people have a right to be afraid of it. so can you still count, seriously, chuck grassley as an ally in getting your health care bill passed? >> i still think there is the possibility of getting bipartisan agreement through the finance committee in order to make progress on a piece of legislation that can pass the

senate. yes. >> senator grassley support in particular? >> well, senator >> senator grassley? >> senator grassley, senator snowe, the three republican senators involved in this. we again will hope to quell the misconceptions that are apparently held even by some in the senate about what the bill is and what the bill isn't. but we'll continue to hope that they can make progress. now whether or not it happens, i don't know. >> it seems to be playing with the white house. go along and then slam you down. >> we'll, i guess we'll see about that. >> robert, senator grassley did yesterday specifically ask the white house what the president say he's willing to sign a bill that doesn't have a public

option. is that something he's willing to say? >> the president is willing -- the president is willing -- and will -- and wants to sign a bill that has adequate choice in competition for those that enter the private insurance market. understand again, the concept of this option was to provide exactly that, an option in a closed market that in some parts of the country might be dominated by a couple, in some instances, only one insurance company that's offering the ability for coverage on a private insurance market. the option of an additional plan is to simply provide some choice in competition to a group of people that can only get insurance that way because their

employer doesn't provide it, they don't work or what have you. >> so you're saying there needs to be a public option. >> i'm saying there needs to be a mechanism that institutes choice and competition that can be at times very narrow and closed in order for those concepts to impact people's ability to buy quality health insurance. >> one other question. do you know if the president has ever consulted on health care with rahm's brother? >> has he ever -- >> consulted. >> i think he's talked to certainly his staff and to others about health care. i've not been in every health care meeting. >> robert gibbs at the white house pushing back on what they claim are misreports about what is in both the public option and of course the end of life

counseling. joining us now, adam climber. this white house is very much on the defensive. have they lost the offense on the health care debate this summer? >> i think they've lost some of the edge. it's a little hard to tell what the impact of all these raucous town meetings is. some people think they're uncivil, some think it's a good argument. i think they're certainly not dominating the agenda as they hope to. i think one of their real problems, the inability of ted kennedy as he's recovering, his absence makes a big difference. this is a cause that's been his for almost four decades. he knows it better than most people in the senate and he has a way of bringing people

together on an issue that few in the senate can rival. his absence i think makes it harder for the advocates of national health insurance to succeed. >> exactly. you really do feel his absence even though they say he's on the phone, it's not that easy to be on the phone and he's really challenged with this terrible battle. you wrote today about eunice kennedy -- it says so much about this family that even the less well-known members, eunice is fairly celebrated, they had contributed so much.

some would say more than those in the political arena. >> i think both ted and eunice were affected by their sister, rosemary. eunice, she led this movement. one thing that people may forget is that she leaned very hard on her brother to get him to support legislation. the first federal legislation that ever did anything in terms of research and looking at things in terms of treatment. ted once told me this is one of the first lessons he ever fought and how some people who are different needed more help than others and he knew that he came from a wealthy family that could afford whatever medical care was available, but looked at rosemary who had a special set of needs and said there were others like it. he said this was a major factor

in his lifelong commitment to health care. >> thank you so much. we'll continue talking about this subject and others related to the kennedy famry later tonight, tonight and tomorrow. that does it for me this hour. i'm andrea mitchell live in massachusetts. join us back here tomorrow with our coverage of the funeral. we'll be at a nearby church, another church very important to the family. and now, chris jansing and melissa francis pick up our coverage with "it's the economy." you're watching msnbc. your place for politics. ♪ take me home ♪ take me home ♪ to my family ♪ ♪ i need to be surrounded by ♪ the ones who care for me

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